Intramural sports are organized recreational activities held at the high school and college levels to enhance students of various skill levels and encouraging team bonding.
AGHS Counselor Jose Alvarez hosts intramural soccer and basketball. Alvarez started organizing intramural sports four years ago; his interest for intramural sports stems from childhood memories.
“One of the counselors mentioned why I should [run intramurals] and it reminded me of when I was a student in elementary school, when the principal would run intramurals,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez enjoyed playing intramural sports at Cal Poly SLO, as well as playing in an intramural softball league in Santa Maria.
Alvarez aims to increase student involvement and to eliminate the stigma behind playing recreational games at the higher levels.
“Students stopped playing because it was not cool anymore, even though inside they love sports. But because there is no culture they don’t do it. So I think changing that and just having students be active [is advantageous].”
Over the last couple of years interest has grown in expanding the intramural scene to including flag football.
“Oh, I think [expanding intramural options] would be amazing. That would be a lot of fun doing football. I used to have concerns with the safety reasons, with students getting hurt, but that’ll be something that I’m willing to look into.” Alvarez states.
Intramural sports at AGHS have a good showing in regards to how many people participate. So adding new sports is feasible.
“Typically there are 16 teams with five or six players each. So that would be 16 x 6 which is about 100 [participants].”
Intramural games are refereed by ASB students and announced by science teacher Nick Talley.
“It’s really fun. I like being the announcer. The kids have a good time,” Talley said. “I used to do ASB, so I helped put [intramurals] on. I like doing the announcing, and I’m not very good at basketball. So instead of playing, I yell in a microphone, because it’s fun.”
Talley enjoys it because of the feeling of involvement. Students feel similarly in the sense of playing for fun.
“I’ve only really played pickup. I love playing basketball even though it is not my main sport,” Oliver Jensen (‘26) said.
